It's a road every visitor should drive on in Carefree, Stagecoach Pass, for the ancient granite boulders are among the most spectacular in the area. This Eastern flank of Black Mountain is part of the same uplifting of rock that created The Boulder Resort rockpile, Lone Mountain, and Pinnacle Peak. Looking at Black Mountain from the south, from the Carefree Highway, one can actually see how these rocks were forced up through the mountain, and then weathered in spectacular form.  Homebuilders for years have been very creative in how they use these monoliths, as in Tom Darlington's wine cellar buried deep below, for patios and supporting stairways on the property, for dining room walls, for a complete house (The Boulder House in N. Scottsdale), and even for walls in the shower! When visiting the area, see what you can find in the way of unusual boulder use!.

Foothills Fireworks:   Third time is the charm

In what has to be one the only times this has occurred in the area, this year, the Carefree-Cave Creek area got three fireworks displays on three days! On July 2, The Carefree Inn launched a huge pyrotechnic display to celebrate 25 years since the town of Carefree was incorporated.  Because of the close proximity to homes, the new Carefree Fire Department stationed trucks in front of the homes and even firefighters with shovels in the surrounding desert.  The spectacular display went off without a hitch.  Further down the valley, next evening, on July 3rd, Harold's hosted a fireworks display and finally on the Fourth, the Silver Spur, formerly the Satisfied Frog, capped the years celebration off.  Residents remember years ago, when the state's largest fire raged in the mountains above town, all fireworks were cancelled because of the fire danger. Nice to get an extra treat!

Carefree Home to be featured by the Wall Street Journal  Carefree, AZ (PW)-On July 9th, writers for the Wall Street Journal  prepared a piece on an astonishing Carefree home that took an engineering feat of 5 1/2 years to build into the mountain slopes of Black Mountain.  Using real rock for some of the walls and structure, it's the ultimate in "Green" construction.  The residence, with nearly 7,000 sq.ft, has dazzled onlookers for years and is reportedly the highest available home for sale on Black Mountain.  Since the home uses some of the mountain's boulders for walls, the rocks had to be carefully mapped to integrate into the architect's blueprints.  Well-known designer Lee Hutchinson, from Urban Design,  did the master design for the home built by Phil Smith Custom Homes, an area veteran known for building in challenging locales.

It takes an airplane to see what's going on--apparent excavations for a pool and footings for what some day, what should be an astonishing residence!

Hot Real Estate Summer!   Carefree/CaveCreek     Commentary from Preston Westmoreland

What a difference the last year has made in Phoenix-area real estate. All last year, there were over 57,000 properties on the market in our county. Dead in the water. Now, there are less than 32,000.  Yes, a lot of people have taken their homes off the market, but during the spring and early summer, we were seeing up to 1,000 homes disappear.  Most of them bank-owned (REO) properties, and under $ 600,000.   My wife and I went down to the Superior Court steps last week just to watch the home auctions, and it was something to behold.  Not one person auctioning, but at times, there were 5, surrounded by an odd assortment of characters, with cell phones to their ears, getting instructions from buyers, while tubs of drinking water in ice, were circulated around in the 108 degree heat.  Homes in the area under $ 400,000 can have multiple offers and are increasing in value.  In prime areas, those homes sell right when they hit the market.  True, we hear the local banks are holding onto 43,000 more foreclosures and releasing them gradually so they don't destroy the market and plummet the value of the homes they are selling right now, but indeed, encouraging news for the home buyers and sellers, and realtors, in our area.

It's the house everybody sees when they come into Carefree, Rusty Lyon's former home, used in the movie Zabriskie Point. I was recently contacted by a California writer, working on a story on the home and it's roll in the movie.  You may remember that at the end of the picture, the home is blown up in a catastrophic explosion.  Now, it seems the story going around, is that the house was REALLY  blown up for the movie, then rebuilt, rather than a model of the home being destroyed. I think someone has never been told that "you can't believe everything you see in the movies!!